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Mid-century illustration of a shepherd's staff resting against a stone in still water

Psalms 2:4 · World English Bible

Psalms 2:4 Meaning He Who Sits in the Heavens Will

He who sits in the heavens will laugh. The Lord will have them in derision.

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What does Psalms 2:4 mean?

The one seated in the heavens who laughs is the higher mind, resting above the turmoil in the elevated regions of the head, and its laughter is the ease of an awareness that cannot be threatened by the raging of the lower forces. The Lord here is the right hemisphere, the intuitive side that holds the wider view and so meets the plotting of the flesh not with fear but with a kind of amusement, seeing how small the uproar is from that height.

From the Esoteric reading below.

Psalms 2:4 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

ESOTERIC

Esoteric

The one seated in the heavens who laughs is the higher mind, resting above the turmoil in the elevated regions of the head, and its laughter is the ease of an awareness that cannot be threatened by the raging of the lower forces. The Lord here is the right hemisphere, the intuitive side that holds the wider view and so meets the plotting of the flesh not with fear but with a kind of amusement, seeing how small the uproar is from that height. What the raging mind takes as deadly serious, the seated self weighs lightly, because from the crown the whole disturbance looks like children's noise.

The higher awareness enthroned at the top of the head is untouched by the lower mind's frenzy and regards it with the calm ease of one who sees the whole picture.

Heavens: the elevated regions of the head where the higher awareness is enthroned The LORD: the right hemisphere, the intuitive higher mind that holds the wider view

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Esoteric lens

Live Psalms 2:4 today

  1. Next time something online gets you worked up, close the tab and look out a window for one full minute. Nothing you were about to type was urgent.
  2. When someone snaps at you today, let a beat pass before you answer, and answer the person rather than the tone. You can meet the heat without matching it.
  3. In the middle of the most stressful stretch of your day, ask yourself whether this will matter in a month. Then do the next thing anyway, with a lighter hand.

What were you taking deadly seriously this week that looks smaller from here?

The same truth in other traditions

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

The mind that steps back and sees how briefly all this uproar lasts stops being shaken by it. From that height even insults look small.

Tao Te Ching

The sage stands apart from the striving and contending of the world, and the world's noise cannot reach the place the sage is standing. There is an ease in that distance.

Zen

Clouds race across the sky and the sky is not disturbed. Thoughts storm through awareness and awareness stays open.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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